…the development’s scale and isolation make it feel more like a colony than a community. Almost everyone is old, almost everyone drives a golf cart — they outnumber cabs in New York City by a factor of four — and almost everyone is white. But retirees of Hahnfeldt’s generation, who are reshaping notions of what it means to be old, say that it sure beats the life they left behind.

Spanning 23,000 acres, The Villages boasts 513 holes of golf, 85 restaurants, 63 swimming pools, 14 medical centres and the largest softball league in the world. Every night, there’s free entertainment ranging from music to dance.

Of course, the explosive growth of The Villages is indicative of a burgeoning demographic problem: the number of seniors in the U.S. is ballooning, and the population shift could create a shortage of skilled workers to deal with ageing seniors. It could also drive up inflation, Amy Baker, director of the Florida legislature’s Office of Economic & Demographic Research, told Hallman.

In fact, by 2030, one in four Floridians will be older than 65, up from one in six today, according to projections, Hallman writes. But as he acknowledges, walking through the idyllic community, it feels like it’s someone else’s problem.